Knowing everything about me, even I'm unsure. I earn a decent wage and am on a good career path, but not enough to even rent (more of an issue with the British economy), that impacts my independence more than anything. That would be the main deterrent but it's a more complicated thing to solve. I am looking into house sharing and renting a room with strangers as I want to move away from home.
I'd say I'm a solid 4, possibly a 5. I have lowered my standards a lot over the years and don't particularly have a 'type.' I'd only date women around the 25 - 32 range, purely because dating younger would feel creepy and I don't want to leave it too late to have children. Weight and height aren't that important for me, and I think I have a preference for curvier bodies. My comment more-so came from the experience of other female friends and ex-partners. Only one I know of has had no luck, others have been inundated with messages and can basically swipe right on anyone. Also a good few get frequently sexually harassed even on non-dating social media.
Not much. Did try to study pick-up a decade ago (read The Game by Neil Strauss and a few other PUA books) and briefly looked to the Red Pill only to ditch it a few weeks later because I was getting disgusted by the community's asshole behaviour and increasingly rampant misogyny. Also meeting someone who genuinely fears community figures like RooshV and what he stands for opened my eyes further. Incel rhetoric disgusts me even more.
Something I sorely lack is game.
The PUA stuff is BS that only 'works' to the extent that it's like a self-placebo instilling confidence in the methods where there wasn't enough confidence. But most people will just tell you to F off if you try that crap.
Much better is just go out to pubs and have a goal of talking to X number of people a night, and do that at least once a week, and eventually you'll have much smoother ability to start and maintain conversations with strangers in your own way, and much less anxiety about rejection/etc.
I already go out drinking quite often, usually with friends but sometimes I have gone to my local pub on my own. Dunno if I want to make more of an effort with that, because I worry it could impact my health unless I go cold turkey and only drink non-alcoholic stuff.
Talking to others is a challenge and is something I really have to be in the best place to do. Alcohol doesn't really lower my inhibitions as much as it did and I find myself withdrawing more if anything.
You might want to try it with ordering virgin drinks when out alone. See it more as focusing on practicing socialization over an opportunity to drink. Ideally you'd get better at that skill sober, so it makes sense not to drink alcohol when practicing too.
It's more about it being a format where other people are more open to socialization with strangers too.
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